ReEnter the Dragon
by eoraptor
Summary: DISCONTINUED; What do you do when the person who defines your life just disappears? What happens when her disappearance affects the rest of your life? And what happens when she shows up four years later, but you're both different people? Kigo
1. Reunion

_**Re-enter the Dragon**_

By _Eoraptor_

Kim Possible and all related characters © Walt Disney Corporation 2002-2007. This work is not for profit and solely for the enjoyment of the audience. Rated R for language and adult content. Reproduction or distribution of this work without the author's consent prohibited.

A/N: All right, right off the bat, expect Kim and Shego and pretty much everyone to be very OOC in this fic, unlike most of my other fictions I don't intend to pay a lot of lip service to cannon character traits with this one. It also ignores large portions of Season 4, especially the finale. And like "Another Sitch In Time" don't expect this one to update very frequently. I have many irons in the fire at the moment.

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"**Reunion"**

Four years she'd been gone; and now there she was, just shopping? Agent Possible watched the woman who had caught her attention, not quite believing it. It was straight out of her most frequently relived fantasy.

There was the woman who had haunted Kim's thoughts, flipping through a shopping rack in an upscale clothier in New York as though she hadn't been missing from the face of the Earth for four years. Kim took a deep breath, and prepared to finally bring fond dreams to life as she stepped into the store.

-----

It had started out so simply. The summer after graduation it was business as usual; Dementor, Motor Ed, Camille Leon, and a few of the usual assorted second sting villains. Everything went surprisingly smoothly, and most of the villains seemed to actually be taking it easy over the summer.

They got the usual call; Dr. Drakken was breaking into a science lab, and only Kim could get there in time. Kim should have known something was up from the start. The place was crawling with red-suited henchmen. Dr Drakken usually didn't bring his henchmen on actual field missions. In fact, she wasn't sure why he even bothered to keep them on the payroll these days.

Yet there they were, about twenty of them, patrolling the lab, flashing their power-poles, and generally trying to look menacing. Failing miserably of course, but at least trying. Kim and Ron dropped half of them without even breaking a sweat. An outside observer would say, and often did, that this was because Ron and Kim were fantastic and a great team. The truth was that Drakken's henchmen were henchmen in name only. Over-weight, over-paid, and out of shape slobs in tights was a more accurate description than 'henchman.'

When Ron had found Drakken, obliviously rifling through some drawers, Kim had immediately taken up a stance. Where blue was, green could not be far away.

Drakken surprised them by calling not for Shego, but for more henchmen. These, too, were dispatched with ease and then Kim and Ron spent the next ten minutes arguing with Drakken that Shego must be hiding in the shadows, just waiting to attack.

"You know, I'm beginning to think Shego isn't here, and that Dr D brought all these guys in her place…" Ron shook his head and scratched a crown of blonde hair as he pushed Drew Lipsky out the door.

"What do you think I've been saying for the last ten minutes, buffoon?" Drakken snorted and made a show of not going quietly, which earned him a jab in the back as he moved along.

"Yeah… Hmmm, freebie, go us!" Kim grinned at how easily things had gone and nudged a limp, unconscious red-suit out of the way as the police showed up to do their mop-up job.

"Kim… you haven't touched your Nacarito… something wrong?" Ron inclined his head at his girlfriend and studied her face. She didn't _seem_ angry at being taken to Beuno Nacho, for once at least… but something was definitely off that evening as they sat and shared together-time.

"Huh? Or sorry Ron… just feeling… ya know…"

"That time of the month huh?"

"Yeah… What?! No! Ron! No that's not it, and if you ever say that in public again I'll…!"

Ron winced and tried to shrink back into his side of the booth at the fury in the olive eyes he usually adored. The fury, however, quickly faded away and Kim sat back into her seat, sighing. "Sorry… lil over react'ish?"

"…lil… Sorry if I was out of line with the whole… you know… thing." Ron shrugged a bit and reached for another mexi-fry. "So… what do you want to do this weekend?"

"New Zealand?" Kim looked up and smiled hopefully.

"Skiing? I was hoping maybe we could just stay in… been a lot of traveling lately, and I'm a bit bushed. Maybe we could just hang at my place while Mom and Dad and Hana are in Japan. Be nice to not have to baby-sit ninja toddler, huh?" He made a show of yawning, and Kim thought there was something in his eye, until she realized this was what passed for a subtle wink from her boy friend.

"Oh. Oh! Sure Ron." She grinned a little bit, some of the sparkle returning to her eyes.

The rest of the night went better, of course, as did the weekend. It was the weekend Kim lost her virginity, in fact. And despite the awkwardness, everything was just as she could have hoped. The act wasn't planned and fretted over, it just happened. It continued to happen, and got better with practice, every time they were alone that summer.

The next weeks and months went pretty much as the last five years or so had gone. School, now Upperton U rather than Middleton High, an evening job to make ends meet, and saving things ranging from a cat in a tree to the whole world.

Ron was still there, boyfriend and sidekick, as was Wade. Occasionally Monique and Felix would help out as their own busy schedules allowed too. It was Christmas before things started to really change.

The listlessness from that night after fighting Dr. Drakken and his hench-goons had come back. It had come and gone occasionally, and Ron or Kim or both would chalk it up to being a slow stretch, or tiredness from their hectic schedules, or some other banal reason.

Christmas-day afternoon was the first time Kim actually snapped. She didn't hit anybody. She didn't shout or scream or break down in tears… but for the girl who could do anything, raising her voice to her boyfriend was just as bad.

"What do you mean you couldn't find my boots? I left them in your closet last time I stayed over. Darn it Ron, those are my favorite pair! Jeeze! All I want is my favorite boots before I have to go tromping out in the snow and deal with your family!"

Ron just stared at her, brown eyes blinking occasionally. The outburst had seemed, to him at least, to come out of no where. The verbal sting of the words 'last time I stayed over' didn't help any, but that wasn't the point. Kim treating his family like an obligation also stung the brown-eyed boy since he though of them as Kim's adopted family as much as the Possible's were his.

"KP… I- What's the matter, really?" he reached out to touch her shoulder and draw her closer. Kim was a hugger, and she looked desperately in need of one now. Her usually fiery olive eyes seemed dull and listless.

She shrugged him off irritably. She gave him a pained look, as though he should know what the problem was, and picked up her coat. After she'd left, he called his parents and let them know he'd be coming over, alone. Ron was, needles to say, Shocked that Kim would want to spend one of her favorite holidays alone instead of with either one's family, but hey, everyone needed 'me' time, right?

Kim and Ron hadn't been living or sleeping together as much in the past few weeks. In fact, a few days later when he and Monique sat down to talk about it at a new-years gathering, they tried to work out what had changed. All parties involved had basically been blowing it off as their hectic lives, but as the jewish boy and the black girl sat and talked about it, a pattern began to emerge.

"So let's see here…" Monique looked at the cocktail napkin she'd been scribbling on and tapped an ink pen on her lower lip. "Babygirl blows you off for sex here, here, and here. Then she decides not to go out to fancy dinners here and here." Blowing Ron off when he offered to take her somewhere that qualified as nice, that was definitely not Kim's style in Monique's opinion, "And then last week, she just plain blows you off. Any connections on these dates?"

Ron sighed and sat back, looking at the dates, and shaking his head slightly. Monique was putting her business classes to use and being very analytical about the whole thing. Maybe that was what the sitch called for, Ron thought.

Ron was missing Kim yet again. She'd skipped out on the party that Josh Mankey had invited them to while he was in town, and hadn't even said where she was going. Wade could only confirm that the Sloth was still parked in town, and that Kim hadn't called in any favors for rides either.

"Nope… just the usual stuff each week Mo. Stop the bad guy, finish a term paper or, three, catch the late shift at the photo-hut..." Ron chewed on his drink straw and sighed. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Yeah, you're right, that's your guys normal SSDD. She didn't stay out late any nights? Didn't come in with a hangover or anything?"

"I know what you're saying Monique, but no, I don't think KP is keeping something on the down-low. She just wouldn't cheat ya know?"

"Yeah, you're right Ron… girlfriend is many things, but she's not a she-playa." Mo shook her wavy-topped head softly and pursed her lips, looking over the napkin and trying to figure out what might be afflicting her best gal.

"Yeah. so just the usual, fight Drakken, polish off a… waitaminute…" Ron grabbed the napkin, then took out his Kimmunicator and called up the resident techie.

"Hey Wade, Sorry to interrupt your New Years Everlot:DungeonMasters quest, but I need a quick fact check…"

"No problem Ron, we're just encamped at the moment any ways. What's up?"

Ron read off the dates he had in mind and Wade nodded. A moment later he'd come back with the results. "Let's see here… Drakken, Drakken, Drakken, Drakken… Dementor AND Drakken, and... FTW, Drakken on Xmas week, breaking his usual holiday truce. What's up?"

Ron sighed and sat back, nodding resignedly and looking at Monique. "Nothing to worry about Wade-man. Enjoy your quest, and say hey to Tunnel Lord and Master Larryious for me. Ron out."

Monique waited for Ron to let her in on the hunch. Finally, the wait got too long. "Okay big brother Ron, what's the big about Drakken and those dates? You two been fightin' him for bout as long as Kim's been a hero."

Ron sighed heavily and shook his head. He seemed to deflate visibly as he began, "Why didn't I see it before Mo? The way she always had the banter going double-time. The wanted poster in her locker. Those internet rumors…"

Monique looked askance at her best male friend and blinked. "Clue me in here baby boy… cause you're about two pages ahead in the script."

Ron gave her a haggard look and tapped on the napkin, which happened to be a left over Christmas napkin… a green one. "That color mean anything to you?"

"Um, the fat Benjamin's I'm _not_ earning? A color that I look horrible in? Over-used holiday trimmings? J. Crew's favorite fall pallet?"

When Ron let Monique in on his suspicions she railed against them. Kim, firstly, didn't go that way. Secondly, that person in question was way too old for Kim. Thirdly, Kim didn't go that way. Then there was the fact that the person in question was a hardened criminal, while Kim balked when she was given too much change for her mexi-salad. And had Monique mentioned that KP didn't go that way?

Kim showed up January first, and seemed back to her normal self, so Ron wrote his fears off as too much holiday spirit and they resumed their lives as normal, until February 14.

----

"What do you mean you don't want to go out?"

"I'm tired Ron. I spent all week in Belize helping with a damn break!"

"Yeah, you've been tired a lot lately."

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?"

"And headachey too."

"You're on thin ice here Ron..."

"Yeah, so are you. Do you even remember the last time we went out? Or the last time you stayed over?"

"Oh, jeeze, is that what this is about? You're pissy cause you're not getting laid as often as you want?"

"Or at all? Felix gets more than I do, and he's paralyzed."

"God, what a pathetic thing to be whiney about!"

"It's not about the sex, Kim! That's just a part of it."

"Then what is it about. Enlighten me, oh monkey master."

"How's Shego, Kim?"

She couldn't even respond. Her eyes were flashing with anger, but the ability to use her mouth suddenly failed her. She opened her mouth several times, but a proper angry retort refused to appear on her tongue.

Her furious mind had been completely broadsided by something that didn't even fit into the neat little argument of Ron being unfulfilled. Finally she found something to say, and to her enraged and inflamed tongue, it sounded like a sufficient retort.

"What the fuck does Shego have to do with any of this?!"

Ron had been working up a rage to match his redheaded girlfriends, but her complete and utter denial derailed him. The use of a curse word only caught up a second or two later, and caused him to stop and look at her, to study his girl friends face intently. Kim didn't curse, and her language had been much shorter than usual lately.

"You don't even realize, do you?"

"What don't I realize?!" Kim hadn't lost her steam. Unlike her boyfriend, she was now elevated to full on shouting and clenching of her fists.

"You're even starting to act like her. Why? Kim, what did you just say, just now?"

"What do you mean what the hell did I just say?! What are you going on about you idiot?!"

"Language, Kimmie…" Ron knew what to say to get his girlfriend's attention.

The words met Kim's consciousness like a slap across the face and got her attention. She stopped and replayed the last three exchanges. Then she gave a tired sigh and leaned back against the counter in Ron's kitchen and shook her head.

"Fine… Sorry… whatever."

"No, not whatever… Kim… do you even realize what's going on with you? Why you're moody? Why you're not into 'us' anymore?" He motioned between them a moment, "I'm beginning to wonder if you ever really were."

"No Ron… tell me, why do you think I'm not into 'us' anymore." She mimicked his gesture, irritation and weariness replacing the fury in her eyes.

"You miss Shego. Heck, I think you might even be crushing on her. Every time you get like this; it's because we fought 'him' and 'she' wasn't there for you to duke it out with. Now you're even starting to act like her."

"Crushing… on Shego… GOD!!!" Kim's righteous fury returned, and she stormed passed him and grabbed her coat off the rack. She stopped as she tugged it angrily over her shoulders and gave him the full force of a green eyed glare that could melt steel. "Goodbye Ron. Call me when you're over this paranoid delusion of yours."

She gave the door an almost superhuman slam on her way out and didn't bother to look back to see it bouncing open and Ron leaning against it, trying to hide the tears threatening his eyes as he watched Kim walk out of the apartment, and possibly out of his life.

Ron didn't call. Kim, in a potent display of her essential Kimness, didn't call either. Eventually, Ron transferred out of state to go to culinary school, effectively ending Team Possible. Monique wasn't happy with Kim, and she made her feelings known.

-----

Kim just wanted some retail therapy. It was September and she'd just been dumped, again. Worse… It was her first _girlfriend_ who had done the dumping. In fact, they'd just gotten to the point of feeling comfortable calling each other that.

Apparently Kelly didn't think that Kim was paying enough attention to her, and that she was being distant. Kim responded that she was incredibly busy, and had just gotten back from saving the pyramids from Doctor Drakken's scheme to use them as reflectors for a giant solar mirror.

Kelly yelled that it was always Drakken doing something, and that Kim should just let the authorities handle him some times. Why couldn't Kim just pay attention to her for a change and let the world save itself for a change? Was that blue skinned dork really so dangerous?!

After she'd cooled down a bit, the blonde girl tried to curl up with Kim and share a snack with her on the couch. No doing. Kim made it apparent that she wasn't in a cuddly mood. Kim had been very cuddly once she'd given in to Kelly's advances two months ago, so what had changed? Was she suddenly paranoid about being 'one of those gay people?'

Thus ended Kim's first same-sex relationship.

"...as if…" Kim grumbled and made her way into Club Banana.

Mo had just come back from getting in touch with her roots in Africa, or so Kim was led to believe by the store staff the last few time's she'd come by. She'd not seen her best friend since at least March between world saving, school, internship with GJ, and Mo's spiritual retreat.

"Monique, thank goodness! I need something in leather with a lot of push _up here_. I need to feel sexy and price doesn't matter." She was pleading. She really did need to feel validated right now, and there was only one person in the world that could validate her without feeling weird about it, her personal fashion consultant.

Monique though, didn't look to be in a validating mood. Her chocolate eyes narrowed at Kim and she tsk'ed softly. She'd heard about some of Kim's relationships over the past six months, if they could even be called that. Apparently Kim did 'go that way,' and she didn't do it any more successfully than she did the traditional way.

"No girlfriend. You need something with strong knees. Cause you need to be on 'em, apologizing to your best friend. You broke Ron, Kim."

"I what?" She stopped, parsing the words Monique used… Mo didn't say Kim had broken his heart, she'd said she broke _him_.

"You seriously messed with the boy's head, girl… do you know what that boy did before he left for New York? He tried to put the moves on me. _Me_ of all people. Now, I'm not complaining, 'cause I am one fine prize… and I know what they say about the son's of Abraham in the endowment department… but this is Ron."

It took Kim a moment to process what Monique was so upset about. It started to upset her, not that she needed much help in that area these days. "Yeah, so? You didn't miss much, he's not spectacular."

Her eyes stayed narrowed and she prayed, to whatever god over-saw wayward teen heroes, for patience. She was going to give Kim a ration of it, and she needed to keep it below shouting level for the good of the shop as well as the good of their friendship.

"Whose fault is that Kim? It's the girlfriend's responsibility to train boys in that department. Or are you fully on the other team now?"

"I'm not on any team. Not like I'm getting any myself, ya know."

"Not with that screwed up attitude of yours, no you're prolly not. It's a shame too, That Kelly was a sweet girl, reminded me of Tara King back in the day, before she went all Marine Corps."

Kim blinked, she didn't realize her best friend had ever met her now ex-girlfriend. The stopping of her rage got her thinking. Ron, Steve, Josh, Kelly… Seven months, four people… and the most she'd gotten were a few dates, a few good laughs, and maybe three trips to second base. And all seemed to end the same way… a big fight, slamming of doors, and Kim alone once more in the romance department.

"Mo… Am I really messed up?" She sighed heavily and flopped down onto a bench in the store.

Monique's expression softened and she moved to settle down next to her best friend, rubbing her shoulder a bit. "I don't think so, Boo. But something is throwing you off. Yeah maybe you and Ron weren't right for each other as a B/G thing… but you shouldn't have broken up like you did either. And what about those others? Josh Mankey was like your ideal guy since you were old enough to think about them that way."

Kim sighed again and nodded, deflating even more. How many people got a second shot with their high school flame and blew it because… well because.

"And Kelly? Well, I can't say I understand that myself, I needs me some Y-chromosome… but she was so into you, just like Ron was. Hell, like Ron still is. He'd still crawl across broken glass naked for you if you asked, just to see you smile."

That got a small smile of pride and memory out of Kim despite her deflated state and she sighed a third time. "Yeah… Maybe something is getting to me. I dunno what it is though."

Monique bit her lip slightly. She was beginning to believe what Ron had said. Once he'd explained it, and once Mo had found out about Kim dating Kelly… Really _dating_. It seemed to fit with his suspicions a heck of a lot better than just the drunken musings of a teenage boy.

"Maybe you need to find out what happened to Shego. I mean-," She felt Kim's shoulder tense and knew she'd just lost the slight clarity she'd instilled in the girl by pushing for too much too soon.

"Don't… Don't you start that fucking shit too. First it was Ron, and then Josh… now you too?!"

Kim's volume was steadily rising. "Why do people think I have the hots for a villain whose probably dead anyway?! If I wanted a bad girl, there's plenty who email the site every day! I'm still not even sure I'm totally in to women!"

Kim's body had risen along with her volume, and she was striking her fist at the air as she worked up a good tirade. "God Mo! I figured at least you wouldn't buy into that shit! Jesus, of all of the…! I don't even…! Gah!"

She stormed out of the store angrily, fists clenched, and not caring about the display she knocked over on her way out.

Monique sighed softly at their shared stupidity. Her's for pushing Kim in a fragile moment; and Kim's for trying to deny there was something she was missing, and what it was.

-----

Monique and Kim eventually reconciled, after several weeks worth of avoiding ach other at school and parties, and phone calls that each should have made but didn't… but even after reconciliation, they both pointedly ignored discussions about Kim's personal life from then on.

Kim got her bachelors in Criminal Justice, and accepted an offer to go to work for Global Justice. This put an end to her teen hero'ing days and her site, in a very emotional moment, was officially retired by Wade; who himself had moved on to bigger and better things in computers and corporations. Now she was a Global Justice field agent, and that meant she had things like a chain of command, requisition forms, and no time to get cats out of trees.

She also experienced a late growth spurt, and soon found herself able to look her mom right in the eyes, and even look down at Betty Director. Not only did it help her combat skills, but it was something she took a secret little thrill in. How many people could now say they looked down at the person they'd always looked up to?

Somewhere around her third high school reunion (yes, after Middleton High graduated Kim, they decided to have them yearly, just because so many of the students led such 'interesting lives') and the break up of her third lesbian relationship, Kim was forced to come to a realization about herself.

Waking up next to your girlfriend, and finding her staring at you and asking just who in the hell "Shego" is, has a way of forcing your hand like nothing else. Susan Justice was Global, just like Kim, but she had no reason to know who Shego was outside of dry and now dusty criminal records.

"You said her name in your sleep, a few times. At least I assume it's a her. So, who is she KP? Is that the high school crush Monique told me about on vacation last month?"

She left when Kim didn't have any forthcoming explanation or rebuttal. She left behind a well deserved black eye for Kim though, mentally as well as physically. Susan didn't mess around. She also didn't come back or call.

Kim took a sabbatical and spent a few weeks on a beach in Jamaica. It was Ironic, considering who else she knew who liked tropical beaches. She thought about her history since high school, bouncing from relationship to relationship, men and women who came into her life with hopes, and left either hurt or indifferent. Each and everyone ended the same… Well, not true, the last one also ended with her getting her karmic comeuppance over breaking so many hearts. She rubbed her eye subconsciously.

She replayed in her mind over and over everything she could remember about Shego, about their fights and their banter, about the past seven years. The close touches, the fast and furious footwork, the fact that Shego could easily have killed her a number of times. Finally she had to admit it… Shego had given her butterflies, and not the kind that came from impending combat.

Then she flew home to Middleton and visited Ron.

"I owe you an apology."

Ron, who was helping Hana get ready for her first full summer vacation after a legendary year of Pre-K, gave Kim something she never thought Ron capable of before… He gave her a cold look.

"You were right…"

"What about?"

"Me… and Shego."

He simply nodded.

"I don't know how... or why… or when… or even how much and I… I…"

He nodded again, still listening, still giving her that cold look.

She couldn't take it. How had she lost more than two years with him already? He had been in her life almost longer than she could remember and she'd just thrown it away over a stupid argument. One that she'd lost anyway.

"Ron I'm so sorry!" it was blurted out as she rushed him.

That was all it took. Kim tackled him and melted into his arms, sobbing and begging for forgiveness for "breaking" him and their friendship, and Ron gave forgiveness as only he could. He couldn't remain cold and hard against the woman who had once been a little red haired girl in pig tails running from bullies in Pre-K.

They weren't kids any more, and they things they'd said to each other that Valentine's day couldn't simply be forgotten, but they fast fell back into friendship; and all was forgiven if not forgotten. They spent the next week rebuilding things, and Kim had left Ron with a cryptic question about just what he really thought about Monique.

Kim found when she returned to Global a week later that she felt liberated. Admitting she'd had… a crush perhaps, or something more, she wasn't sure… but admitting her feelings about the absent villainess made her suddenly relaxed, free, and open to other reexaminations.

Even Betty Director welcomed back "the old Kim" and noted on her reviews how much more diligent and effective she was. She began to build a reputation around Global for being friendly and easy going, and always willing to help out in any operation she was asked. This ran a little counter to her old rep as an adrenaline junky with a temper problem, so things were a bit awk-weird every now and again.

Her epiphany also had two other entirely surprising results. She stopped going from relationship to relationship, instead just being happy to be herself and be by herself. She also started having little daydreams that a younger Kim Possible would, and indeed had, vehemently denied.

-----

Now, as she stepped into Shilo's Clothier, she was about to finally live out one of those daydreams. She had often, over the last year or so, dreamt about the day she might cross paths with the verdant villainess again.

It would go one of two ways. Either Shego would drop what she was doing at that moment, ignite her hands, and begin trading razor-sharp banter with Kim just like the old days. They would trade kicks and blows, and finally laugh it off over a drink or three and talk about the good old days.

…or Kim would throw her arms around the emerald mercenary and tearfully admit that she'd missed, and indeed pined for Shego, and they would become best friends, just as she had with Miss Go years before, and then maybe more.

Kim wasn't prepared for the third outcome: Reality.

Shego did something that Kim would never, in a million years, have thought she would do when Kim called out her name.

"Shego. I knew I'd find you one day…"

The malachite thief didn't turn to face Kim, she just raised her hands and whimpered quietly.

"I give up."

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Author's notes additional; Okay, before you ask, Susan punching Kim was NOT spousal abuse. She's just not the kind of woman to settle for a slap in the face to get her point across, and Kim pretty much deserved it, as she herself realized. ((we'll explore this and their relationship more in another chapter so it won't seem so sudden))

Those of you who have read my magni opus "The Darkness Without" will also recognize Susan Justice as "the pretty blonde bitch" as Shego calls her at the end of that story. She's something of a transplant, and we'll see her again in both works.

We'll also be seeing Marine Corps Tara and a few of Kim's other Highschool friends eventually, or so I have planned.


	2. Avoidance

_**Re-enter the Dragon**_

By _Eoraptor_

Kim Possible and all related characters © Walt Disney Corporation 2002-2007.

A/N: All right, right off the bat, expect Kim and Shego and pretty much everyone to be very OOC in this fic. It also ignores most of season 4.

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

"**Avoidance"**

"I give up."

Agent Possible blinked slightly. Three little words tripped her mental circuit breakers and made her stop in her usually confident tracks. These were three words that she didn't even think Shego knew. Her keen olive eyes narrowed and she took in the scene in a trained, accustomed manner.

Slumped shoulders, hair pulled into a limp pony tail, flat simple sneakers. Her clothes weren't trashy, but weren't the high-quality labels Kim remembered Shego favoring either. Had she made a mistake? Were there more people in the world with emerald-tinted skin? She studied the woman further, intently.

Shego, meanwhile, was still standing there, unmoving and doing her best to show she was absolutely no threat. When no commands were forthcoming, she took a chance. Slowly, she turned around to take in the person who had addressed her. She looked towards the floor though, not meeting the eyes of the person addressing her. _'Polished black boots. Important officer._' Her mind told her almost instinctively.

After what, to her mind, was several minutes without a further command, Shego risked raising her eyes up. She wanted to gauge what infraction was causing this protracted silence, and the person who'd spoken to her wasn't saying anything yet. Maybe they didn't know she was an escapee; they hadn't darted or gassed her yet after all.

Slowly emerald eyes made their way up the form of the person who'd approached her. Black slacks, dark blue shirt in a feminine, but not frilly style, hung from a long slender frame. The hands were pale, with short cut nails, but she wasn't close enough to judge their strength or the state of any calluses.

She blinked; the boots weren't actually law-enforcement, they were just very well cared for. Not an officer then? Her eyes darted back down and began their assessment again. It had been a long time since she'd seen someone not in a jumpsuit of some sort, so maybe she was jumping to conclusions. She could tell by the way this woman held her hips that she knew how to handle herself, despite the civilian clothes.

Finally, she made it to the shoulders and her heart started beating again. In fact, it leapt into her throat. Shoulder length _red_ hair dusted across the shoulders. A fine pointed chin came into view, one her fists remembered very well. She clenched them slightly in sympathetic memory. She stopped at the lips and chin, not ready to look up any further for fear her hopes would be dashed.

Kim was getting a little impatient with the silence. Yet she couldn't do anything about it. For one, she wasn't used to this particular vantage. She was actually at eye-level with Shego. The last time she'd met and fought with the malachite mercenary, she'd been a good five inches shorter.

Working past that discrepancy, she stared at Shego's face intently, analyzing every line and feature on the older woman. And older she definitely seemed; Shego seemed to have aged a decade, and the years were not kind ones from what Kim could tell. Okay, so make that two issues leading to her silence.

Shego's eyes were haunted, hunted even, and they made Kim want to reach out and hug the villainess. That wasn't a part of her normal daydreams. Shego wasn't the hugging type; never had been. That was what stopping Kim from playing out either version of her simple fantasy any further.

Shego's emerald eyes finally angled upwards a bit more, and settled on the woman's olive eyes. Recognition flashed like lightning between two different shades of green and Shego was the one to break the silence, barely able to manage a whisper at the fulfillment of her own dream, "Princess?"

-----

Shego, hardened villainess, mercenary, and all around hard case, sat in her cell trying to ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach. The last thing she remembered, she'd been walking down the streets in Milan, a bag of clothing in each hand as she enjoyed the Mediterranean sun and searched for the next storefront to catch her eye. The next thing she remembered was a sharp sting in her neck. She swatted at it instinctively, feeling the dart there, and that was all she could recall.

She'd woken up in a holding cell made of some thick clear plastic, probably Lucite or Luxon 2. That meant she could only be a few places since very few agencies could afford such nice cells. She looked down at her hands. No cuffs, which struck her as unusual. She tested a theory by snapping her fingers.

Nothing.

That was when the cold lead ball had formed in the pit of her stomach. The one she was trying to ignore currently. She noticed, upon moving her foot to cross her legs irritably, that her legs were shackled. No cuffs, but manacles; another clue. They knew her fighting style beyond just her fire powers. That narrowed down who had her even further.

Her suspicions were confirmed when a pair of guards in blue jumpsuits appeared at the front wall of her transparent cell. Shego swallowed her lump and stood up, shuffling right up to the wall of the cell to stare at them. "Hello Global dicks... Where's Betty?"

The guards didn't say anything, but one pressed what must be an unseen keypad, because the door to her left clicked and opened inwards.

"Arraignment hearing? Okay then… I'd like to see what they were able to find enough evidence of to charge me with anyways."

Shego was led to a small court room and dumbfounded at what she heard.

Shego couldn't believe it when she'd heard it at the arraignment. Being escorted into the facility in person really didn't solidify the reality for her any, either. She'd always thought things like 'secret trials' and 'secret prisons' were a myth that long-timer's told the newbs in prison to entertain themselves. Right?

-----

Kim couldn't believe the look Shego gave her. In Kim's day-dreams, at least some of them, it was _she_ that was supposed to give _Shego_ that look. Longing, fear, relief, disbelief, and a dozen other things were behind the villainess's electric green eyes.

That look came out of the dream where Shego swept back into Kim's life and took her away from it all. It was one of the older day dreams, from a time before Kim had even fully admitted her feelings, whatever they turned out to be. From the dark days when Kim had left Ron and was lost, and fantasized about just tossing it in as far as heroing went; that was where that fantasy was from, and that look was being turned back on her now.

Shego gave a quick, paranoid look around, and then clutched the dress she had been examining to her body. "Okay Princess, it's your show… how are you going to get me out of here? Where's Dr. D. at? Did you bring the naco-boy?"

Kim stood, dumbfounded, looking Shego over. Her brain had just slipped into neutral and wasn't even bothering to work on the thief's questions. It just spun its mental gears as she stared.

Gone were those dangerous curves the one-time Go City hero was famous for; the kind that stopped traffic and summoned lecherous thoughts. In their place was a hard body, sculpted out of green marble, with every twitch of her muscles evident as she continued to look around. Thick veins fed well-formed muscles in the woman's bare arms, and strong tendons were visible at her elbows and wrists. It was almost like looking at a walking comic-book heroine or an anatomy study. This was a body that could break someone in half if called on to do so.

Yet, the body _language_ spoke exactly the opposite. Shego's shoulders were hunched up in nervousness now; where as when Kim had first come upon her, they'd been slumped defeatedly. She shifted uncertainly from foot to foot as Kim watched her, and her fingers were kneading the fabric of the dress she'd been investigating when Kim had startled her. Her eyes were shifty, but not in a deceitful way, more like those of a small frightened child checking under her bed at night.

'_Who is this woman?'_ was all Kim's mind could come up with when it got back into gear after a moment. _'This is not my Shego. This is a whole different animal.'_

"Possible? Please, what's the plan?!"

The urgency in Shego's voice finally pushed Kim's mind fully back in to gear. She carefully rested a hand on the older woman's shoulder and gave her a tiny shake, wanting to snap the verdant woman out of her near-panic. Shaking Shego was like trying to shake a washing machine with one hand, and with similar results. The woman's shoulder was like steel, and didn't move under the gentle pressure.

Still, the contact seemed to pull her back from the brink, and she turned those panicked jade eyes on her perceived savior.

"Come on Shego, let's get you out of here. Have you had lunch yet?"

Shego shook her head, and an audible grumbling of her belly split the silence between them, causing Kim to chuckle softly at the comedic timing. Ron's guts used to do the same thing when she asked that question. Still, she needed to calm and distract the raven-hared vixen, "Were you buying that dress? We can take it with us if you want."

'_What the hell is the matter with you? Screw the dress! We _need_ to get out of here before _they_ find me!' _Shego's mind screamed. Her mouth said nothing and she shook her head, nervously hanging the dress back on the rack. After a moment, the former thief straightened herself up, preparing for the long-awaited getaway.

Slowly, carefully, she stepped towards Kim, closing the few feet between them as though she were walking the last long mile. She had to consciously fight the well trained urge to hold her hands out, wrists up, to await restrains. Still, Kim was finally here, finally with her. She was safe at last. Days of running, hiding, and evading caught up with the emerald henchwoman then and there.

-----

She was getting tired of that fucking tazer. Every time someone tried to start something with her, she got fried. As though it were _her_ fault mouthy fuckers wanted to start shit with her? She hadn't even thrown the first punch this time for crying out loud!

Shego groaned and slowly peeled herself up off the ground, wiping some grass off her face. Four days of this, and people still didn't get that she was not the one with whom to fuck. She'd taken the first three inmates to come after her apart even before she could be tazered.

Now the guards were getting faster with their triggers; and she'd only landed four blows after Mulmar had smacked her. "Shit that's starting to hurt…"

She was lying of course, it had hurt the first damned time they'd zapped her, and it wasn't feeling any better with repeated dosages of voltage. These weren't normal tazers, she knew. They were tuned way the hell up, and they kicked like a mule. She stared round the yard, and at the non-descript mountains beyond that framed the nameless valley the prison lay in, trying to catch her breath.

Then Mulmar wandered over and kicked her, spitting on her as well. "Foul woman. Learn your place."

Why the hell didn't they tazer his ass, he'd hit her first for fuck's sake! Okay, so it was just a slap on the face, but still! Growling, Shego got up and flexed her palms, trying to summon up retribution.

Again there was that cold lump in her core. The cold lump was the sensation left in her after her injection the first day she was here. It was also the reason she couldn't summon up her fire to teach Mulmar about a woman's proper place by lighting that beard of his on fire.

Shego's fire was gone, suppressed by that injection four days ago. She felt alien without it, and the repeated shocks weren't helping her to feel any more normal.

-----

Kim yelped as Shego collapsed forward into her arms. Actually Shego collapsed forward into Kim, period. Her arms only snapped up to catch the unconscious fighter when she flopped forward into the redhead's chest. Kim had to drag her to a near by chair fire-rescue style and set her up on it.

She found herself feeling very fortunate that the clothier had a _very_ well stocked first-aid kit available as she drug Shego to the chair. A few whiffs of smelling salts soon had the emerald woman coming around and shaking her head at the biting scent of ammonia. As she did, Kim had the chance to study her face.

Her earlier assessment was definitely accurate; Shego seemed to have aged a lot more than four years if the fine frown lines at the corners of her lips and eyes were any indication. The dark green bags beneath her eyes didn't make her seem much younger either, and Kim sighed as she propped the malachite woman up and waited for her to come 'round.

"Shego, what happened to you? Where have you been?" she whispered as she resisted the urge to caress the older woman's face. She was a bit startled when Shego responded, even though her eyes still closed.

"Prison fucking happened, that's what. Sorry about collapsing on you like that." Emerald eyes opened with a pained expression as she looked to Kim and shook her head to clear it. "Now… I was asking about getting out of here?"

Kim chuckled softly and handed the saleswoman the first-aide kit back, shaking her head and smirking. She chose to ignore the fact that this was about the first time Shego had _ever_ apologized to her about _anything_. "There's my Shego. Yeah, let's get you out of here before you cause another scene."

As she rose shakily to her feet, she looked over at Kim with a mixture of confusion and irritation. "Your shego? That's news to me, kitten."

"Oh, and you're _not_ the woman who just fell into my arms and begged me to get you the hell out of here?" the redhead smirked and arched a brow at her new companion as she rose and offered a supporting elbow. "Maybe I should just turn you over to the tender mercies of whomever you're so afraid of if that's the case."

Kim's potent smirk died as she saw the ghost of panic roll over Shego's drawn face. It was quickly hidden behind her trademark smarm; but it was there, and Kim saw it plain as day. The smarm itself was something of a ghost in Kim's eyes, a pale imitation of Shego's formerly glass-cutting whit. Still, she figured a good meal and maybe a night's sleep would fix that.

One whisper of a concern finally occurred to Kim as her initial shock with the sitch wore off and the two women exited the store. Just who was it that Shego needed to stay hidden from? She had always been able to take care of herself in the past… _in the past…_

After a quick stop at Cow & Chow, where Kim watched in amazement as Shego inhaled three half-bulls and a large moo-juice, they returned to Kim's hotel room. Five stars, and in the heart of Manhattan. Yes, Global Justice paid very well indeed. Kim wearily led her green-skinned guest into the suite, watching the hunted way in which Shego moved until they were within the confines of room number 705.

Once again the redhead was struck by the mixed messages Shego's body and eyes were putting out. Her tight body, and it was _very_ tight, moved with her typical confidence and swagger. Her eyes, however, scanned every dark corner and every open space as though it held an army waiting to ambush her.

"Here we are Shego… My home for the next three weeks. And yours as well if you need a place to crash I suppose." Kim latched the locks on the door, and turned to watch her verdant companion again as she kicked her polished boots off.

When she did, she was shocked. Once again, just as she had at Shilo's Clothier, Shego let her cocky illusion evaporate and her body collapsed in a wrecked heap on one of the beds. Kim felt lucky now that she'd paid for a two bed suite despite having no plans of having guests, because the way Shego splayed out she took up most of a full bed on her own. She allowed herself to survey Shego once more as the dark woman mumbled something silently to herself and stared at the ceiling, and then turned away.

The Global Justice agent stepped to the small office space and opened her laptop. She searched for records on Shego once more, just in case something had been posted since the last time she'd done this. Once again, however, nothing appeared. No record of Shego for the last four years, not so much as a parking ticket or a drivers' license renewal. The woman really had just dropped off the face of the Earth it seemed. Closing the laptop, Kim silently sighed to herself and returned to the bedroom of the suite.

She was surprised to see Shego passed out once more. She paused, listening to the sound of the older woman's breathing with a keenly trained ear, and nodded to herself. The emerald woman was soundly asleep now, even though her lips still moved slightly in some somnolent discussion every now-and-again.

"Maybe… Maybe I should call Wade. He might be able to find something on Shego that I haven't. Besides, it would be good to talk with him again." Kim spoke to herself as she continued to look over her guest. She missed talking with Wade, actually talking. Email just wasn't the same these days as talking to him on a vid phone almost daily during her teen-hero years.

She wasn't going to call Ron yet, even though he was still going to school here in NYC. Shego was still something of a sore spot between them and she winced at the thought of reopening that old wound.

'_Speaking of wounds…'_ She thought as she leaned forward. She blinked, now seeing an angry scar running up Shego's abdomen. It was bared as the blouse she was wearing had come untucked and ridden up in her tossing on the bed. About an inch long and very thickly puckered, it stood out smoothly against the rest of her green skin because it looked as though… well the truth was it didn't look like any kind of scar Kim had ever seen.

It was like a deep incision that had been stitched shut and only just finished healing; but there were no stitch punctures along it, not thread marks criss-crossing it. She reached out and very lightly ran the tip of her index finger along the scar, and over the clearly sculpted abdominal muscles along Shego's left side, her green eyes drifting to the sleeping woman's face in deep concern once more. _'Where have you been?'_

_----- _


	3. Hypervigilance

_**Re-enter the Dragon**_

_By Eoraptor_

Kim Possible and all related characters © Walt Disney Corporation 2002-2007.

A/N: All right, right off the bat, expect Kim and Shego and pretty much everyone to be very OOC in this fic. It also ignores most of season 4.

Special thanks for everyone who is leaving reviews, both here and at KPslashHaven. I know that the warping of the characters here is not everyone's cup of tea, so I am glad some of you are enjoying it. Remember, the only way any of us fanfiction(DOT)net authors know if our stuff is being read is if you, the reader, take a moment to leave your thoughts. Thanks in advance. :)

----- ----- ----- ----- -----

"**Hypervigilance**"

Olive eyes flashed open in the darkness of the seventh floor hotel suite. Something was not right. Kim lay absolutely still, not ready to give away that she was awake until she had more information; and better yet, a plan of action.

_Grunt, phew. Grunt, phew. Grunt, phew._

What was that? That wasn't the sound an intruder usually made, even if she was in an expensive hotel in SOHO. Intruders usually went_scrurry, scramble, scurry, yank yank yank. _

Moving as if in sleep, Kim angled herself to leap out of bed when the time came. Her movements didn't seem to disturb whoever was moving about in the suite though, as the noises continued.

_Grunt, phew. Grunt, phew. Grunt, phew. Scurry scurry. Grunt, phew._

The sounds of hands and feet scrabbling about at the foot of the other bed helped Kim narrow down the location of the intruder. The hotel suite was absolutely dark though, so she had only sound to guide her. Even the alarm clock was an old wind-up job. As though tossing in her sleep again, Possible worked free of the sheets and comforter.

_Grunt grunt grunt, phew. Grunt grunt grunt, phew._

The rhythm of the noises changed, picking up speed. Listening closely, Kim realized the sound was of someone breathing hard, exerting themselves. A shudder of disgust ran through her as her mind leapt to the first reason why such noises would be heard in the darkened room of a single young woman on vacation in a strange city. Visions of a hairy, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing "perpetrator" with his pants already down filled her mind's eye in the lack of any visual stimulus in the darkened room.

_Grunt grunt grunt, phew. Grunt grunt grunt, phew._

Well, Kim Possible, Agent of Global Justice, wasn't anyone's perverted fantasy. Nor was she going to lay there and let this guy attack in the darkness.

_Grunt grunt grunt, phew. Grunt grunt grunt, phew. Grunt grunt grunt, phew._

"Aiyeeeeee!"

---

Shego's electric green eyes rocketed open and she sat upright in bed. Already, though, the terror of her dream was fading into the mist. Wait, she didn't have a bed? She had a cold steel slab with a thin mattress, not an actual bed. Where was-? Oh yeah…

"Kimmie…" She whispered quietly in the darkness, a sigh of profound relief accompanying the whispered name.

Kimmie, Princess, Kitten, Cheer-leader, Kimmie-cub; these had been Shego's magic words for most of the last four years. When she was beaten down, when she was battered, when she'd been… These were the words that brought her back, kept her sane, reminded her she was still a human being, and that there was an outside world.

Kim Possible had become a symbol for her after the second dark week at "The Facility." She was all that was right in the world. She was above words like "law" and "Quid Pro Quo." Kimmie existed in a rarified place where justice was a real and pure thing, and not a term printed on a piece of paper by bureaucrats. A shining beacon proving that security was something that someone _gave_, not something which faceless thugs in blue jumpsuits _enforced_.

Shego tried to lay back down and close her eyes, relishing the feel of an actual mattress beneath her, and not a shallow cloth-wrapped foam pad merely 'called' a mattress. Still, after a few minutes, she realized that the adrenaline rush inspired by the now-vanished nightmare was not going to let her sleep.

Well, there was one thing she did at night, no matter what. It was her small defiance. It was the one thing she could do, alone in the darkness, to thwart the rules of "The Facility."

Slipping silently from the bed, as though she was still afraid of being caught out by a passing guard, Shego moved to the foot of this generous bed, laid down on her belly against the luxurious carpet, and began to push herself upwards with just her left arm.

After a few dozen reps on each arm, she slowly and quietly crawled around and wedged her feet under the foot of the bed. She used her abdominals to sit up, touch each elbow to the opposite knee, and then back down in a sinuous movement. The action was fluid, more like a snake coiling about itself than a human doing situps.

She had gotten through a few of these when a piercing scream rolled through the air. The scream was hauntingly similar to others she had heard, and it threw her mind back to a dark place and time, even as her body was also thrown.

---

As soon as Kim's shoulder made contact with the chest of the intruder, or rather the breasts of the intruder, she realized her horrible mistake. In her vigilant state, she had forgotten that Shego had been passed out in the bed next to her own for the last several hours.

Even as her momentum carried her and the emerald malcontent across the carpet, she realized that Shego's feet had been wedged beneath her bed. The sounds Kim had heard must have been Shego working out, not some pervert masturbating to the vision of her sleeping. Explained her new physique well enough.

Kim's mortification at her error blinded her to the counter-attack. A pair of bare feet mule kicked her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her and catapulting her over her roommate. She landed, almost breaking her back against the dresser when she collided with it, and groaned breathlessly. Before she could even move to right herself, having landed upside-down, she felt a pair of iron bands seize her about the throat.

The iron bands were actually the thickly-tendoned hands of Shego, and although Kim could not see her face, the feral snarl the other woman let loose put the fear of God into the redhead. The sound was inhuman to her ears, and even as spots started forming at the edges of her vision, Kim knew the malachite mercenary was not in control of herself.

"Mulmar!!! I told you if you ever tried to-,"

Whatever Shego was screaming about was cut off when Kim used her long legs to seize the woman about the head and slam her into the vanity mirror of the dresser that she was pinned against.

Gasping for breath as she was released, Kim rolled away, clutching at her ragged throat and trying to protect herself. Being dropped on her head had been the least of her concerns as she fought desperately for air. She waved her hands frantically as Shego turned, even though the movement was futile in the darkness.

Finally she managed to croak out, "Shego! Stop! It's Me! Kim! SHEGO!"

The muscular woman hadn't made another move towards Kim, but after a shambling moment, the emerald woman dropped to her knees.

Rubbing her throat; Kim gasped more, flinching backwards at the thump of Shego dropping. When no further attack came, Kim inclined her head, listening intently. She heard… sobbing. Coughing softly, her throat seriously injured, the redhead reached around on the aggrieved dresser until she found the lamp. It was still miraculously intact and she flicked it on, needing to see if Shego was that badly hurt.

Shego was staring at her hands now, which were still clawed as though they had been when around Kim's throat. Entwined in her fingers were two strands of long cinnamon hair. She sobbed again, her green body shuddering as she flexed her fingers. She watched them incredulously, as though they were things with a mind of their own which might leap for her own throat at any second.

Kim coughed again harshly, and rubbed her neck round and round. She felt suddenly fortunate that Shego hadn't flared up, or a sore throat would be the last of the then-decapitated agent's problems. Ignoring Shego's seeming catatonia, she moved next to her, carefully checking her face and forehead. There was a lot of blood there, but as Kim wiped it away, she found no laceration. Apparently Shego had already healed from having her face slammed into the vanity. More of those bizarre powers she and her brothers shared.

The redheaded GJ agent was caressing her neck still, and the small of her back where she had been inverted and pinned, and wishing for a similar mutation. Finally though, she returned her attention to the emerald beauty before her. She was still staring at her clawed fingers in disbelief, and it was not something Kim liked. Once again she was painfully reminded that something had happened to her arch nemesis.

Again, and even more keenly in the dim light of the desk-lamp, she was confronted by the way Shego's body was now that of a Miss Olympia contestant. The shadows thrown out by the soft yellow light of the desk lamp accentuated every muscle in the woman's arms. However, when Kim moved to touch her mint-hued skin in a more soothing manner than her cursory examination, Shego came out of her catatonia a bit, shying away from the contact.

"Kimmie… I'm… I…" it was a shamed, timid whisper, and the more slender of the pair sighed, moving to sit next to the dark woman in the light of the lamp.

Wishing she could stop babying her wounded throat with her hand, Kim nodded and was a little surprised at the raspy sound of her aggrieved voicebox. "It's okay Shego. I'm sorry for attacking you. But obviously I'm off my game, you never would have caught me like that in the old days."

She tried to chuckle, but ended up merely coughing. Shego winced at the sound, but there was a faint smirk on her lips, a ghost of her old playfulness. "That how you justify it to yourself, princess? 'I ain't as good as I once was?' Well, whatever gets you through the night. But you were never that good, you just thought you were."

Kim's smirk matched Shego's, a ghost from days a few years passed, and she shook her head and croaked back. "Yeah, that's why I kept sending you to the klink, because I only thought I was good enough. Dream on green bean."

Shego stared at Kim in the dim light of the lamp incredulously. When had the perfect little princess stooped to nicknames? Come to think of it… when had the redhead gotten so tall?

-----

Across a continent, in Silicon Valley California, Wade Loade was passing a boring evening as his latest program compiled. Boring really didn't describe it… The young man was in his late teens now, and he was restless. It was eleven PM on the pacific coast, and he was sitting here, waiting for an artificially intelligent agent to finish being compiled by a less intelligent one. Once that was done, he could go home to his apartment and be restless there.

That was the strange thing about working in artificial intelligence programming. You didn't do so much actual code-writing as you monitored the output of other programs. It was more like breeding sheep than writing programs. This wasn't really what bored the chubby computer genius. The fact was Wade didn't know why he was bored and/or restless.

Which was why he couldn't seem to do anything about it; if he couldn't identify the root cause, he couldn't cure the mood.

"Well, okay. Maybe I do know why." Wade sighed and relented to himself. The feelings of drifting, listless boredom, and restlessness had been getting worse over the past few months. Work, even cutting edge research on artificial intelligence, was hardly a challenge to him most days.

"Not like I'm running support and intel for a certain teenage heroine anymore, is it?"

Groaning and rubbing his hands over his face, Wade lifted one finger to check the status of his compiler program. When Kim had gone pro two years ago, Wade had thought it would be a good thing for him. He'd never shared the reason for that feeling with anyone, but he thought that too was a good thing.

Kim had come to Wade when he was a ten-year-old uberhacker. She and Ron just couldn't keep up with her burgeoning website, which had gone from a simple babysitting advertisement to the front-end for the girl hero of Middleton. He had gladly accepted, because at that time, everyone else in the world still treated him as either a brainy freak or a ten year old _little_ boy. Kim was the only one who treated him as an equal.

So they had grown up together, and grown in to Team Possible. Wade watched both Kim and Ron grow into capable heroes and crime fighters, and honed his own hacking capabilities and added to them with a new-found knack for invention. Then, for Wade at least, the problems had started.

By then Wade was fourteen. Like any fourteen year old boy, he was starting to think about girls. Now, this in and of itself was a perfectly normal and healthy thing. His mother certainly encouraged it, as she did anything that helped her boy be more normal and healthy. The problem came in a conflict of interests.

The problem was; the chunky hacker with the dark skin was smitten with one girl in particular. Who wouldn't be? She was gorgeous… a cheerleader, a championship one at that. And she was sweet, and caring, and always had a kind word for him. Perusing the net, Wade knew that others understood and shared his infatuation. Who couldn't love this girl? Cover-girl good looks, heart of gold, buns of steel? She had it all.

Yes, Wade fell hard for Kim. It made him do stupid things. Kim never asked why her prototype battle suit fit her like a glove, and he wasn't about to tell her about the in-depth body scans he had of her, since they weren't strictly professional. Likewise, she never asked where all the pictures of her fighting Shego, or Killigan, or an army of henchman, came from when they would show up on the net. She counted on him to handle the publicity, after all, and to keep it to a minimum.

The problem was, about the time Wade's crush was developing, Reality was conspiring against him. Through a combination of events, Kim also fell hard for someone; the other nerd in her life, Ron Stoppable.

The boy-genius's logical side understood that his chances with someone like Kim were a long-shot a best. She was five years older than him, white, (that was an issue in Wade's family) popular, outgoing, and into athletic men; So most of the things about Kim that attracted Wade kept her out of his league as well. Still, the hormones and lonely heart of a fourteen year old boy kept him pining for her, and staying fiercely at her side for three more years.

It was hard on Wade, watching Kim and Ron be happy together. Then Wade had started detecting patterns of unhappiness between his two friends. Of course he recognized the pattern of Kim's 'moodiness,' patterns were his job after all. He feigned ignorance that night Ron called him and asked him to crunch calendar dates on Kim's mood swings, but he already had a good idea. When Ron had called him up on February fifteen to help him pack up some of Kim's stuff, Wade had been the solemn best male friend dutifully helping out; but a devious little voice in the back of his head had whispered over and over again that he now had his chance.

His chance never materialized though. When Kim stopped talking to Ron, she largely stopped talking to him socially as well. It became all business between them. Worse for the love-sick boy was yet to come, though. He'd finally managed to curtail most of his more stupid maneuvers, like snapping candid pictures of Kim on missions, or chatting up her qualities on the internet and rabidly defending her in flame-wars, but he still held out hope that she would get her act together and see her loyal techy in a new light. He was more mature now, and He hoped she could see that.

Then, he'd called her up at her apartment in Upperton to let her know she was needed. That was how he had been introduced to Kim's new lifestyle. Kelly, a pretty blonde girl with eyes the color of sapphire had picked up the Kimmunicator. This was the first alarm bell. Kim didn't let anyone else handle her Kim'com unless they were her partner and she trusted them. So far that was Ron, Wade, Rufus, and occasionally one of the tweebs if she was in a pinch.

Well, when Kim kissed her on the cheek and retrieved the device from her grasp, Wade understood that Kelly was her partner all right.

There are few faster ways to crush a fifteen year old boy's spirit than to tell him that the girl he holds above all others… …wasn't so much in to boys anymore. The suggestion that a boy Wade's age would be really into the idea of 'his girl' being into other girls was a myth, and a painful one to the hacker-genius. He had done his very best to keep it together while he gave Kim the specifics of the 'sitch, and begged off claiming allergies when questioned on his sniffles.

Even though Kim was more perfunctory with him these days, Wade still knew of her relationship woes. He watched her go back and forth between men and women over the next few months. Watching her trash her relationship with Josh Mankey a second time really stung, because it was the one time she broke down in front of him on the Kimmunicator. He watched how the broken hearts changed the once vivacious redhead of his life. How she became brusquer, more business-like, and started cursing on occasion. He hated it. Part of him again whispered that he had a chance; that he and he alone could bring Kim back. But it never happened.

When she graduated college and joined Global Justice full time, Kim asked him to finally close out her site and tell the world she was now out of the pro-bono world-saving Game. The hurt, now sixteen year old boy had briefly been tempted to lash out… to deface KimPossible(dot)com, and to tell the world how heartless she was. Fortunately though, the more mature and professional person in Wade won out, and decided that getting Kim out of his life would be the best thing for him.

For a while, it had been. He started leaving his room, now an apartment of his own, more often. He got a job in the public sector, and even had a few dates with some girls who were wowed by his reputation or his intelligence.

These last few weeks though, Wade was realizing that he missed it. Not so much that he missed and still wanted Kim, even though he damned well did; but he missed the excitement. Wade missed the pressure; the wild nights spent trying to hack a government spy satellite, the think-on-the-fly mentality and inventive solutions.

So here he was, thinking of calling up his old boss and asking if maybe she needed a civilian contractor. He didn't, of course, since it was two AM in New York; but he was almost convinced he would do so in the morning. It was a shame he didn't call, or he could have saved the object of his ardor a crushed voice box and a very big hotel cleaning bill.

----- ----- ----- -----

_Please forgive how long this took to get out, and any typos you may come cross. I've only just gotten over a really bad case of the holiday blues that lasted from turkey day to new years and started writing again. In fact, things are kind of coming out in a rush now, and I'm working on four projects at once; This, A Blonde Moment, a new project that you'll see shortly, and a group author work on SlashHaven…_

_Gomen nasai._


	4. Sociopathy

_AN: Kim Possible owned by Walt Disney Company. Characters will seem OOC, read the first chapter for full disclosure. Please leave reviews…_

**Reenter the Dragon**

By Eoraptor

**Pt 4: Sociopathy**

Warmth. It had been a long time since Shego felt warmth while sleeping. "The Facility" was situated at the head of a wide mountain plateau, and as such, it constantly had a cold wind blowing through. Wherever the prison was, it was not a warm climate. In almost three years it had never got much above fifty degrees in her experience. The inside of the building was kept cool as well, usually somewhere in the mid sixties.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem for the dragon woman. She came complete with a built in atomic furnace, after all. But The Facility seemed to have an answer for everything. Her monthly injections killed her plasma somehow, so she was left to shiver and growl at the chill, her limbs slightly stiff in the cold if she didn't keep moving. Then of course, there was the floor plan of the secret prison. Stone walls did not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage. It was the very lack of these things that made the place even colder, both literally and figuratively.

The Facility was pretty well communal; no doors except in the infirmary, large windows that looked out on the nameless plateau and only a large hurricane fence in the distance. Actually, it was three hurricane fences, spaced about thirty yards apart and topped with razor wire, lights, and cameras, but these encircled a space of at least twenty acres surrounding the lone building and its thirty-some "residents." There were paved areas, dirt and grassed areas, and even a small garden plot in the open terrain between fence and building. Individual rooms within the block house were small square affairs, with a single piece toilet/sink pedestal set in one corner, a single twin bed, a small dresser for jumpsuits, socks, and undies, and a small desk, all bolted to the floor.

The openness wasn't for the prisoners' comfort, however. Quite the opposite; it was to make everyone look over their shoulder constantly, and to fight tooth-and-nail to hold the small amount of privacy they could pretend to maintain in the cloisters of their small but open-access rooms. There were no boundaries save the fence, no walls beyond the rooms, no cover to be had anywhere. Even the garden was limited; the tallest plant growing was a single three-foot high tomato plant belonging to Sanchez.

So why was it that she felt warm and safe, even with the hard floor beneath her butt?

Something moved.

Shego froze. Her first instinct was to lash out at any movement within her personal space, to rend it asunder and face the consequences later. The half-somnolent woman suppressed the urge to strike out at the movement just yet, for some unconscious reason. She twitched after a predetermined amount of time, expecting the clock-work precise timing of a tazer shot as well, but it never came.

She realized, after a moment, that the floor beneath her backside was carpeted and not hard at all as she had first imagined. In fact, it was very soft. Movement again; it distracted her and she gave in to the impulse to react. She sprung away from the motion, to the center of the floor space before she had even opened her eyes. Upon opening her electric jade orbs, Shego found herself not in the center of the stone floor of her room, but between the feet of two full sized beds in a hotel room.

Sighing heavily, Shego scrubbed her face in her palms and pressed the balls of her hands into her eye sockets, attempting to shake off the rush of initial panic. Reality slowly flowed back to her as she rubbed her eyes and moved from her crouch into a slightly more natural sitting position. When she removed her palms from her face, she saw Kimmie sleeping on the floor next to where she had been.

The girl… no, Shego shook her head softly, forcing some further perspective on the situation… The young woman, was still sleeping apparently, sitting there on the floor where they had sat and talked after cleaning up from her little "night terror."

"Night terror nothing... it was some kind of fucking flash back," she shuddered, shaking her head bitterly and looking at the savior whom she had nearly killed. She looked to the makeshift scarf Kimmie had wrapped around her neck, and then to her own hands, scowling at them. "She's lucky I can't do… _that…_ any more, or she'd just be a fucking corpse. A head and a body with a charred stump in between. Damn it Shego!"

"She's also not too thrilled to hear that first thing in the morning, ya know?" came a grumbled response from across the floor, "Not a charming mental image to wake a person up with."

The emerald woman blinked and stared across the floor to where the redhead sat. She hadn't seemed to move in the least, still appeared to be sleeping there, but obviously wasn't. Shego looked around in embarrassment and finally spied the wind up alarm clock of the room, barely visible with the tiny amount of light allowed in under the heavy and still-drawn curtains.

Turning back to Kim's silhouette, she snorted softly and tried not to stare at the shirt the younger woman had drawn about her neck, "Eleven thirty. Hardly first thing in the morning there, Princess."

Kim stretched herself out and arched, parts of her body tensing and relaxing rhythmically. She did it to ignore the forced, hollow quality to Shego's snark. The redhead could hear the words, the same kind the two of them had always exchanged; but even in the dim light she could see the lack of fire and conviction, the absence of the trademark Shego-smirk.

Masking her pained sigh at that absence with a groan and further stretch, she rose from the floor and padded over to the curtains. After a moment's bracing, she threw them wide and let mid-day's light spill into the hotel room. She paused out of the view of her new roommate, thinking to herself and rubbed her wounded throat softly beneath the long-sleeved shirt she had put around her neck in the early morning hours.

"Still sore, huh?"

The vacationing agent flinched softly at the words, not realizing she'd been seen. She rubbed her neck more openly, but conscientiously kept herself covered as she had in the predawn hours before they'd fallen asleep. "Yeah… a little, Shego. I'll be in turtlenecks for a few days, I s'pose. You still pack a punch."

There was a sound of tinkling behind her, and she turned away from the window to see Shego thoughtfully sifting the broken shards of mirror piled in the waste basket. "Yeah… so do you, Angel. I hope they don't take this out of my tab."

Kim smirked softly at the quip and was about to retort about whose tab it was when the aberration caught up to her. "Angel? That's a new one, Miss Go."

"What? Oh… well, yeah… I had a lot of time to think on them while I was away, you know." Shego looked up from her seat between the beds. She slowly rose as well, her body popping audibly as the muscle tension of her explosive leap gave way to normal morning stiffness. "…and Miss Go? Gah… please don't mention her again. Prison of the body was almost as bad as that prison-in-my-mind that was your substitute teacher."

"Yeah? Well tough. I've got almost eight years worth to catch up on with you when it comes to nicknames." she had forced herself to pause before speaking, to once again not ask about prison. "So get used to it, frog-face."

She'd asked twice about where Shego was during the previous night. After they had cleaned up the broken glass of the vanity, she had calmed Shego down enough with simple conversation to get her to open up a tiny bit. That was until she'd asked about where Shego had been for four years. She got a gruff bark of a response, once again reiterating "prison," and nothing further on the subject. After several more awkward minutes they had again slipped into a comfortable rolling conversation about the old days, and had drifted off to sleep next to one another sometime around three in the morning..

"Frog Face… Yeah, that's weak, Princess… so I'll allow you the practice, for now." Shego's face momentarily became its old self; smirking, confident, and cute in the same dangerous way a baby rattlesnake was. "I need to grab a shower… Then I trust you can treat your old nemesis to lunch, since you let her sleep through the five-star continental breakfast?"

"Mind if I join you?"

Shego's expression boggled, and she nearly tripped over the foot of the bed she had been rounding. It took her a full thirty seconds to recover herself enough not to simply let spill her disbelief at what she thought she had heard the former teen hero offer. "I think you're supposed to buy me dinner first for that, Pumpkin… not lunch afterward. Honestly, what did you mother teach you?"

"I meant… you seemed… it's not _that_!" Kim stumbled, then snorted dismissively.

"Uh-huh…" The larger woman shook her head slowly. Taking a deep breath she turned to proceed to the suite's bathroom. "If you make a drop-the-soap joke, you're getting a plasma enema… and I'm not talking the kinky kind."

"Way to go Kim…" The redhead sighed as Shego disappeared. She moved and sat down at the desk, cradling her head in her hands, "Your crush of the last five years or so waltzes back into your life and you turn into an innuendo-spewing teenager. Should have just asked her what size strapon she prefers while you were at it. As if she'd let you do _that_ with her when you couldn't even hug her last night!"

_**-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-**_

"You don't have my office bugged, do you?"

"You know I couldn't tell you if I did." she gave the dark skinned young man on the other end of her vid phone a coy smile, "But why do you ask?"

"Because I was just thinking of calling you, and I know that you don't have any mind reading abilities or super-powers, unlike your ex."

"I didn't realize we'd reduced him to a title," Kim sighed softly, looking at the lens of her phone's camera. "But considering I didn't even get a post card from Tokyo this year…"

"Yeah... well Ron did kind of have his hands full with a ninja kindergartener." Wade chuckled on his end of the call, sipping on, of all things, a bottle of water. "So, if not a bug; to what do I owe the rare pleasure of a face to face?"

"Well… um… huh…. How to put this?" chewing her lower lip, the agent hemmed and hawed, eyes drifting to the still closed bathroom door and the sounds of a bath therein.

"One night stand you want checked up on?" the chubby programmer gave her a meaning-laden look from the small screen. "So... who is she? Or is it he?"

Green eyes looked aghast at the screen. After a long moment during which Kim's cheeks darkened several shades, she rubbed her face in her hands self consciously. "Your brain still rocks Wade… but it's not like that. Well not completely anyway. And just how did you know? Or think?"

'_great… I'm being interrogated by my own geek… god I'm slipping so fast.'_ She continued to herself before Wade resumed talking.

"You called me up, apparently straight out of bed and with the mother of all hickeys," he motioned around his face and hair and then to his neck, "And you looked directly to what I assume is your hotel's bathroom, where I can hear water running."

Kim blew a frustrated, and relieved, breath through her lips and redressed the small screen, "Like I said… and in surround sound even, with a driving base line. But this is a lot bigger than just a dalliance."

"Shego?" Wade managed to hide the mix of emotions on his face pretty well, but the surprise still drifted through.

"Are you sure _you_ don't have _me_ bugged? Or chipped like," she made air quotes as she stared at the screen archly, a mixture of paranoia and wry humor in her gaze, "the ex?"

"Just call me Holmes, Agent Watson," he winked at her and pulled on his water bottle again, "You wouldn't call me to background just any piece of tail; you could have your own agency do that. But Shego… She's too dangerous to do that, and you know that I have other channels. Plus, she's the only person I know you would let spend the night aside from Ron, me, or one of your family when you're on vacation in a strange city, unless you've started becoming promiscuous in your old age? Which, I might add, not the brightest move Kim Possible ever made."

"Too many darned geniuses in my life," Kim groused softly. She touched the screen, though, missing this kind of instant rapport in her new life with Global. "Yeah… all true Wade. Worse, she says she's been in prison. And if she's an escapee…"

"Then you have to put on your double eagle and turn her in."

"Okay, who are you and what have you done with the boy who tried to use a bun warmer to get the girl?" She arched her brow at the screen, trying to mine any humor and levity from the situation. "The Wade I remember barely came out of his room, let alone dispensed profound deductions on interpersonal relationships."

"Well, we all gotta grow up some time, Kim. So… You want to know where the green meany has been huh?" Wade already appeared to be typing on multiple keyboards, just like old times.

"Please and thank you."

_**-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-KP-**_

Shego was trying to enjoy the bath. Normally she was a shower woman, but after four years of only taking lukewarm prison showers with naval sprayers and bar soaps, she'd decided indulgence was the better part of valor.

"What the fuck is up with Princess?" She lay in the generously sized tub, immersed and occasionally rippling the water; but too bothered by the last two days events to enjoy the soak completely. She gave the water particularly petulant slap and sighed, looking over her own body through the sloshing suds. "Tempus Fugit indeed…"

An expression of concentration crossed her face for several seconds. It increased in ferocity with each passing second, until it was finally banished with a snort of frustration and another slap on the water. "Damn it! Still nothing! Did they fucking kill it?! Gahhhh!"

"Shego!?" The door flew open behind her shoulder a second later, banging against its hinges sharply, "Are you all right?!"

"Cheese and Rice, Princess! Would ya knock first?!" the emerald bather growled and turned about in the tub until she could face Kim. She sat up, but made little move to cover herself for the moment despite her exclamation.

"Well, I heard a lot of splashing, and then yelling, I was worried you'd hurt yourself or… or something." Kim blinked in sudden embarrassment at Shego's nudity and turned around, and then turned around again when she found herself looking at Shego's reflection in the generous bathroom mirror. "I mean... the way you fainted yesterday, and then conked out on the bed… and last night."

She took a few deep breaths to calm her racing heart, and hoped that Wade wasn't too panicked at her sudden disconnection of their call.

With a reluctant groan acknowledging Kim's concerns, Shego lay back in the tub and resumed trying to soak. After a long moment, she realized Kim was still standing there, albeit looking away. She threw a wet, heavy washcloth at the back of the younger woman's head, "Obviously I'm fine… just frustrated… think I could finish my bath now? Or were you enjoying the show?"

Kim wheeled about at being struck in the head with the very wet washcloth. The night's exhaustion caught up to her and she momentarily forgot their situation, the last five odd years, and the fact that her roommate was laying carelessly naked in a bathtub she was paying for. "I was concerned, okay?! But I guess the big bad Shego fears not a little bath water, huh? Is _that_ why you broke out? To impinge on my good will and get a free scrub and nap before going to break Drakken out of Florence?"

A fount of water announced that the old rivalry was on, and Shego erupted from the over-sized tub and the spray almost faster than Kim could process the change in position. She dropped back out of the bathroom and struck a stance even as Shego kicked through the air she had just been occupying.

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA _**WHY**_ I ESCAPED!!"

Kim ducked and weaved from the claw swipes that came with that declaration, but found herself feeling a lot slower than she used to. She felt fortunate that Shego appeared to be slower as well; or at least that was how it seemed. A particularly vicious slash of clawed hands whipped through the air, and the only way Kim could avoid it was to close the distance. As Shego's arm impacted hers, Kim saw the rush of anger in the older woman's emerald eyes. She seemed again at the edge of reason, and Kim felt Shego's more powerful arms flailing against her now as she bore the brunt of the attack at her shoulders.

"You've got NO IDEA AT ALL!"

By the two second mark, Kim's brain realized something was different. This wasn't a matter of either of them being slower or out of practice. Instead of utilizing any of the complex moves and talents at her disposal, Shego was still just battering her with her arms angrily, using her as a punching bag. Okay, the metaphor wasn't wholly accurate, as punching bags didn't hit back as Kim had been trying to do up to this point; but this definitely was not a contest of skill or an outright fight.

"I HAD to get out of there! That place was eating my SOUL!"

Still putting up some effort not to be pummeled by the stronger woman's attacks, Kim grit her teeth and changed her tactics slightly. There wasn't enough room to get behind Shego in the small hallyway, so Kim thrust her thumb up under Shego's left armpit and into a nerve cluster she knew could be found there. It was like trying to jamb her thumb into concrete, but she felt and saw the emerald woman's bare left flank suddenly shudder.

The bigger woman dropped away, clutching her arm tightly now to her side, her eyes burning with wrath. After a few moments of glaring daggers at Agent Possible, she growled and fell out of her stance somewhat, clenched fists at her sides twitching still, "You have no idea at all why I had to escape."

Kim rose from her own stance as well, shaking out her battered upper arms and trying to hide the fact she had badly jammed her thumb. She blew a breath through a stray strand of cinnamon hair and sighed, "Then tell me why." Then she swallowed a bit, as more of her non-combat faculties returned to her and she regained awareness of the situation, "And could you put a robe on please? You're dripping on everything."

Shego looked down at herself, also realizing for the first time that she was naked and wet. Finally she looked back to Kim, her eyes narrowing minutely as she bit back a few cutting remarks. "I'll finish my bath, and then we can talk. If you're done hurling accusations that is?"

Kim's own olive eyes narrowed equally, but she swallowed and nodded, biting back her own bitter words as well. She was about to say something when there was a knock at the hotel door. "Miss Possible?"

"Shit…" She cursed and turned away, chewing her lower lip. She rapidly took in the damage they had done to the hallway wallpaper, and to the mirror shattered in the night, and scowled fiercely, "And pack your things, looks like we'll be heading to a new hotel."

Looking around herself and nodding resignedly, Shego turned and reentered the bathroom, clicking the door closed behind her.

"Just a moment…"

-- -- -- -- --

AN: Thanks to my two beta readers for eyeballing the story and helping me smooth it a bit. Sorry for the profound delays… there will be an explanation up on my main page shortly… Please read and review though… feedback encourages chapters.


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